- 1,206
- South Africa
double post. Sorry
Weather/dynamic time of day has caused jagged shadows. Should it have been left out?
- Thread starter zork123
- 143 comments
- 17,735 views
- 1,206
- South Africa
- 1,206
- South Africa
Rain has the same effect...
- 2,087
- AR, USA
- SFX_Adavicro
- SFX Adavicro
+1000
The shadows arent bad but the look of the edge of cars with smoke/water around them is startling...
- 1,206
- South Africa
I just had a thought why there's now jaggy shadows in GT5 when their wasn't before in prologue, It must be to do with 3DTV support!. They had to do something to still make it smooth in 3D so that must have been it, lower the shadow quality. Kinda sucks cos I doubt most folk will buy a 3DTV 
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- 68
I hate to say this, but the shadows are some of the worst I've seen in a current gen game. I was in photomode when I first noticed them. The car model itself(mini cooper s) was awesome and so were the reflections, but the shadows(especially from the side mirrors) were so horrible that I was honestly stunned for a few seconds. Why would they go through all the trouble of making these highly detailed car models only to use shadows that look like they might have come from an original playstation game?
- 35
Maybe they overestimated the power of the PS3 when building the game, so they've had to compensate by making low quality shadows.
The shadows there are using cascaded shadow mapping.
http://developer.download.nvidia.co...aded_shadow_maps/doc/cascaded_shadow_maps.pdf
I'm not sure why GT5P was better with regards to jaggies, or shadows generally. Maybe they ran more splits or something, which is slower.
I'm quite surprised how bad they are in GT5 really. I have a feeling that technically they are better (ie, shadow areas at sunset are able to be cast a long way off trees for example), but the cost is that they never look really good until you run lots of splits and big map sizes... costly.
This technique is probably technically better than GT5 P, but the Time Of Day and sunsets means that a shadowing technique that can work in these very complex shaded scenes is needed.
I wonder if when you drop to 720p the PS3 runs bigger shadow maps to help remove these jaggies?!
Dave
http://developer.download.nvidia.co...aded_shadow_maps/doc/cascaded_shadow_maps.pdf
I'm not sure why GT5P was better with regards to jaggies, or shadows generally. Maybe they ran more splits or something, which is slower.
I'm quite surprised how bad they are in GT5 really. I have a feeling that technically they are better (ie, shadow areas at sunset are able to be cast a long way off trees for example), but the cost is that they never look really good until you run lots of splits and big map sizes... costly.
This technique is probably technically better than GT5 P, but the Time Of Day and sunsets means that a shadowing technique that can work in these very complex shaded scenes is needed.
I wonder if when you drop to 720p the PS3 runs bigger shadow maps to help remove these jaggies?!
Dave
- 177
- NZHippo
The first race I tried was a drift trial and on looking at the replay I was quite horrified with the jaggies between the car and the smoke. The new smoke effect is amazing so it's such a shame how terrible the jaggies make it look. I was quite shocked to see this in the final game and I really hope they can fix this as I was looking forward to getting some great drifting photos and replays.
To end on a positive note though apart from that and a few other bugs the game seems awesome otherwise - so much content in this game it has really amazed me!
To end on a positive note though apart from that and a few other bugs the game seems awesome otherwise - so much content in this game it has really amazed me!
- 50
- Mercurial
- MercSqd
Same thing with rain as well right? It isn't just my graphics card going nuts?
The water being splashed back at my car from the one in front, as well as (I guess) the water being kicked up by my car created some sort of forcefield of pixelation around my car. It is disgusting.
EDIT: Added some pics and a vid. Can't recall if I've seen anyone else do the same earlier in the thread.
You can see it around the roof of the car. I also included a short video of me moving the analog around in Photo Mode during a replay so you can see it a bit better. It also shows up around other cars.
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- 303
It's a memory issue. Larger shadow maps are required for better quality shadows. Much in the same was as textures.
I don't think day/night really plays into it. Since all that changes is the angle being cast by the shadow. Shadow angles changes all the time based on where the car is in relation to the light source.
I think for the most part, the shadow map resolution they have for the game is fine. It's in the instances where the angles get really fine that the resolution falls apart. Shadows cast from the rear bumper onto the license plate is one example. Or the sun visor from the in-car gallardo video posted earlier.
Dropping the resolution probably won't make them any better.
The in-car paddle shifting bugs me a lot. In the cars where the shifters are attached to the steering column, the animation is terrible. In the audi R8, the hand goes THROUGH the steering wheel. Argh. A simple solution would be to just keep the hands on the wheel at all times and animate the fingers flicking through the gears, whether or not they're actually hitting the paddles. It breaks the illusion a tiny bit, but at least it would look a lot less jarring that what's in the game currently.
The difficulty with the whole concept is the amount of permutations the animations/game has to account for based on where the 2 hands are and what shift you want to do, and how quickly you want to shift through the gears.
I don't think day/night really plays into it. Since all that changes is the angle being cast by the shadow. Shadow angles changes all the time based on where the car is in relation to the light source.
I think for the most part, the shadow map resolution they have for the game is fine. It's in the instances where the angles get really fine that the resolution falls apart. Shadows cast from the rear bumper onto the license plate is one example. Or the sun visor from the in-car gallardo video posted earlier.
Dropping the resolution probably won't make them any better.
The in-car paddle shifting bugs me a lot. In the cars where the shifters are attached to the steering column, the animation is terrible. In the audi R8, the hand goes THROUGH the steering wheel. Argh. A simple solution would be to just keep the hands on the wheel at all times and animate the fingers flicking through the gears, whether or not they're actually hitting the paddles. It breaks the illusion a tiny bit, but at least it would look a lot less jarring that what's in the game currently.
The difficulty with the whole concept is the amount of permutations the animations/game has to account for based on where the 2 hands are and what shift you want to do, and how quickly you want to shift through the gears.
- 238
- United Kingdom
Hello Mr.Whippy.
See http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KB1tj64fvb0#t=28m00s for details. Take note that reflections are also low-resolution (even worse in the GT5 final release than is shown in this video). A good place to see these (in a repeatable fashion) is to check out the Red Bull hangar area and some of the reflections cast in 'reflective materials' at this location.
On the assumption that the 4xAA can be replaced with hardware Quincunx AA (as per 1080p mode) & the assumption that VRAM would be saved (depends how the AA is achieved) then it could be that saved memory could possibly be used to:-
* Create a higher-resolution shadow buffer for all objects (or just cars).
* Create a higher-resolution particle buffer for spray / snow / dust / smoke.
* Create a higher-resolution reflection buffer for reflected objects.
Assuming the possibility of these options, there are more questions regarding keeping a 60fps frame rate...
1) How much extra time to do extra calculations & produce better averaged shadows for objects?
2) How much extra time to draw additional pixels (to higher resolution buffers)?
3) How much extra time to draw reflections (more intensive than shadow maps)?
Assuming any one of these - or all of these improvements are possible...
The PS3 cannot upscale vertically in hardware - only horizontally. That means a native buffer of 1280x720 cannot be upscaled (using just the h/w upscaler) to 1920x1080 (i.e. 1080p) and that means it wouldn't be possible to have the menus and photo travel mode in lovely 1080p, whilst using a 720p native buffer for the racing (and keep 60fps). 1080p mode would thus have to remain as is & would look inconsistent against 720p mode. There could be an issue of pride..?
The 720p mode (again - assumptions made!) would be more consistently smooth - albeit at a lower resolution overall and it means people with 1080p TV sets would have to change their PS3's to 720p every time they wanted to play GT5 in that mode. That would be annoying! GT5 would ideally want to have a "Toggle display to 720p" option, just to save 1080p users from having to go into the XMB and set the PS3 display to 720p for this one game.
I've not tried photo travel mode (nor photo mode) in 720p so I don't know if it's possible or not to create & save a 1080p (1920x1080) photo (or higher) in the 720p mode.
I'm not sure I understand why the jagged shadows & smoke / spray / dirt / snow are still present in the 30fps replays & the photo travel mode. You would also think that it is in Polyphony Digital's best interests to have high quality photos & video replays uploaded to web sites such as this one. In game racing is 60fps but I definitely believe Polyphony Digital could do better with 30fps replays and photo mode.
Only Polyphony Digital can do something about this, so I would say that if you want to see something done - nag KY about it and hope... http://twitter.com/#!/Kaz_Yamauchi
GT5P tracks remain at a constant time of day (fixed light source). All the shadows (trees, sign posts etc) are baked which saves time & memory doing both track side object and car shadow mapping. i.e. Less calculations to do just the cars. Baked shadows are still used on GT5 tracks that don't have a dynamically changing time of day, you might hope car shadows would be better on those tracks but they're not.
Venari made reference to the sawtooth-edged shadows when he went to Gamescom '10, but he was wrong about it being fixed for GT5's release.
See http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KB1tj64fvb0#t=28m00s for details. Take note that reflections are also low-resolution (even worse in the GT5 final release than is shown in this video). A good place to see these (in a repeatable fashion) is to check out the Red Bull hangar area and some of the reflections cast in 'reflective materials' at this location.
The shadow maps aren't any better in 720p but I agree that they perhaps could be made so. This link confirms (1280x720) 720p @ 4xAA. http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/digitalfoundry-gran-turismo-5-tech-analysis
On the assumption that the 4xAA can be replaced with hardware Quincunx AA (as per 1080p mode) & the assumption that VRAM would be saved (depends how the AA is achieved) then it could be that saved memory could possibly be used to:-
* Create a higher-resolution shadow buffer for all objects (or just cars).
* Create a higher-resolution particle buffer for spray / snow / dust / smoke.
* Create a higher-resolution reflection buffer for reflected objects.
Assuming the possibility of these options, there are more questions regarding keeping a 60fps frame rate...
1) How much extra time to do extra calculations & produce better averaged shadows for objects?
2) How much extra time to draw additional pixels (to higher resolution buffers)?
3) How much extra time to draw reflections (more intensive than shadow maps)?
Assuming any one of these - or all of these improvements are possible...
The PS3 cannot upscale vertically in hardware - only horizontally. That means a native buffer of 1280x720 cannot be upscaled (using just the h/w upscaler) to 1920x1080 (i.e. 1080p) and that means it wouldn't be possible to have the menus and photo travel mode in lovely 1080p, whilst using a 720p native buffer for the racing (and keep 60fps). 1080p mode would thus have to remain as is & would look inconsistent against 720p mode. There could be an issue of pride..?
The 720p mode (again - assumptions made!) would be more consistently smooth - albeit at a lower resolution overall and it means people with 1080p TV sets would have to change their PS3's to 720p every time they wanted to play GT5 in that mode. That would be annoying! GT5 would ideally want to have a "Toggle display to 720p" option, just to save 1080p users from having to go into the XMB and set the PS3 display to 720p for this one game.
I've not tried photo travel mode (nor photo mode) in 720p so I don't know if it's possible or not to create & save a 1080p (1920x1080) photo (or higher) in the 720p mode.
I'm not sure I understand why the jagged shadows & smoke / spray / dirt / snow are still present in the 30fps replays & the photo travel mode. You would also think that it is in Polyphony Digital's best interests to have high quality photos & video replays uploaded to web sites such as this one. In game racing is 60fps but I definitely believe Polyphony Digital could do better with 30fps replays and photo mode.
Only Polyphony Digital can do something about this, so I would say that if you want to see something done - nag KY about it and hope... http://twitter.com/#!/Kaz_Yamauchi
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- 119
VERY good post on the issue and well said. While I will certainly not continue to dwell on this, you guys are certainly stating the facts and something should be done in a patch (which I understand is not possible I guess?) or definitely in GT6 of course. We'll see...
- 1,056
- London
I'm not going to read this thread.
After racing online with a couple of friends on Le Sarthe at night, i can honestly say it is one of the most intense, exciting races I have ever taken part in. One of the most intense and exciting moments of gaming ever. To take that away from this game, would leave alot to be desired.
After racing online with a couple of friends on Le Sarthe at night, i can honestly say it is one of the most intense, exciting races I have ever taken part in. One of the most intense and exciting moments of gaming ever. To take that away from this game, would leave alot to be desired.
- 50
That's a fantastic article. It proves that most of us in this thread were right from the beginning. Especially Zork, the topic starter. Too bad the interviewers never threw our worries, about GT5 not being full hd, in Kaz his face when it could have made a difference.
On the bright side, I was very pleased to see the sound being available in 7.1 so at least my surround set is getting an up to date signal.
- 162
- GTP_David (race)/KopparbergDave (casual)
- KopparbergDave
Must agree that the water/smoke effects around the cars is horrific, I don't honestly know how they could have left that in and thought it was passable. I'm not expecting perfection but those effects as they are simply should not be in, it negates the point in having those effects if they look so terrible (and they really, truly do, no one could deny that). The long hanging smoke trails are brilliant but they should not have been included if this is the cost, essentially showing you a horrific graphical glitch around the acr whenever they are used. I mean, really, it means that 90% of the time the effect is used, these glitches will also be visible.. so what was the point?
Still, brilliant game, in spite of all of this, I'm hoping some more time to graphically tweak things and a patch after a while might tone down these issues, even if people say it's not gonna happen, I think the game in the state it is in, ANYTHING could be altered given enough reason and complaints.
Still, brilliant game, in spite of all of this, I'm hoping some more time to graphically tweak things and a patch after a while might tone down these issues, even if people say it's not gonna happen, I think the game in the state it is in, ANYTHING could be altered given enough reason and complaints.
I hope these shadows are fixed, sometimes theyre not too bad but sometimes theyre damn right ugly and its hard not to notice them.. even if they could just patch the unnatural flickering, itd make a massive difference..
its like painting a masterpiece and then having some blind dude touch up the details... ok maybe not that bad.. but it does ruin the 'picture'
its like painting a masterpiece and then having some blind dude touch up the details... ok maybe not that bad.. but it does ruin the 'picture'
the thing with shadows is that they are very technical. for one, they are a resource hog. but because they are dynamic and if the next playstation is backwards compatible. the game will graphicly improve over time on the next playstation. you cant do that with shadow maps, or baked shadows. the only question will you still play this game when the next playstation comes out.
HKS racer
(Banned)
- 4,802
I really DON'T care about PS4 and GT6 at the moment! Today I was watching a replay and yes, those shadows are the biggest epic fail in the videogame history. PD cannot be so blind, they HAVE TO do something in some future updates. We don't need dynamic shadow if dynamic shadows means ugly disgusting shadows.
- 9,181
- United Kingdom
- neema_t
Talk about blowing things out of all proportion! People seriously need to get over this, it's getting beyond a joke. You think some rough edges are the biggest epic fail in videogame history? Have you only played one game or something?
People go on about the 'GT Defence League' but not so much the 'GT Troll Brigade'...
